Ahiru is a duck who is transformed into a young girl and who takes ballet at a private school. One day she receives the ability to transform into a magical ballerina whose dancing has the power to heal people's inner turmoil. Her power also comes with a mission -- to restore the shattered pieces of her schoolmate Mytho's heart. But there is more to fight, as Ahiru and everyone else slowly become aware they are pawns in a larger story that envelopes their village.
Princess Tutu is clearly a strange series, even for anime. Like Revolutionary Girl Utena, it is best absorbed on a symbolic rather than literal level. Because, taken literally, nothing in this series makes a damn bit of sense. There are bipedal, talking cats who teach ballet, students who are randomly other animals, and a long dead author whose hand controls everything that unfolds within the story. Traditional logic need not apply in this series.
But it is pretty interesting despite that. I like how it plays with both magical girl series and fairy tales. (They really go hand-in-hand, don't they? Magical girl series have their roots in fairy tales, after all -- just look at Princess Knight, widely regarded as the prototype for magical girl manga and anime.) Admittedly, the latter bit intrigued me far more; I love fairy tales, especially the old, crazy, violent Grimm/Perrault fairy tales. Some of you have read those, right? Those things are fuckin' nuts. Highly recommended.
The darkness of those stories seeps into Princess Tutu, particularly in the second half of the series, where the story shifts from a traditional fairy tale to a meta battle where the characters fight the author for the right to determine their own destiny. I really love how the traditional archetypes are played with and how the characters struggle to determine their own being outside the roles defined for them within the story. All the awesome dark imagery doesn't hurt either.
As much as I enjoyed the second half, I was kind of meh on the first half until the climax. It's fairly straightforward (for Princess Tutu, anyway), and while genuinely exciting at times, it's not quite as meaty as the second half other than a few hints of the village's true nature here and there. Not like it's a total chore to sit through or anything, mind, but I wasn't totally enamored.
The writing in the series is solid. Each episode begins with a short fairy tale that more or less spells out the themes of the episode and/or the trauma in the heart of the person Ahiru heals. They add some nice atmosphere to the episodes, and while they straight out tell you what to look for, it's still interesting to see how it develops in each story and how it's played with within the episode.
I mentioned the visuals a few times before, but I'll say again that they are quite striking. The colors -- both light and dark -- are bold, as befitting a fairy tale, and the designs for the village itself are fantastic. I really loved looking at everything throughout the anime. And the music itself is a treat as well: Lots of classical ballet themes, of course, which I suppose I must be in the mood for considering I enjoyed this and Black Swan so much.
If there's one big negative for me, it's that neither dub track is particularly good. Maybe a story like this is just difficult to act, I dunno. I just wasn't really feeling it in either English or Japanese. For the record, I listened to both for a few episodes and then stuck with English for the duration. When in doubt, go with the language you know.
But, yes, Princess Tutu is an interesting sort of magical girl series. It has some of the repetition that genre is known for, but it makes up for that with interesting themes and a modern examination of fairy tales. Who can't get into that?
If you like this, then watch ... : Revolutionary Girl Utena, of course. Similar examination of fairy tale archetypes, though Utena is WAY more sexual than Tutu.
